Face Plant

He could still inspect the poignancy of his feelings about her through a mist—the shape, the idea discernible but the color and feeling obscured. Were those months they had together the last time he felt anything deeply? He would love to shrug it off as the passion of youth, but he was 24 years old at the time, not so young. Perhaps it was true love, as foolish and trite as that sounds. But he couldn’t think about it or he wouldn’t have the courage to see her again. 

He pulled his car onto the cracked driveway of a cape cod house. The gray shingles had faded to a dingy white near the roof and a few of them dangled precariously. Without the sense memory of the surrounding cul-de-sac, he wasn’t sure that he would have recognized the house as his childhood home, his parents’ home. He probably couldn’t have picked out a photo of the house. But his body recognized the space without his mind quite placing the images flittering around him. Before he could even hop all the way up the uneven walkway to the house; the akimbo screen door creaked open in a burst. 

“Honey, I’m so happy to see you.” His mother kissed his cheek and ushered him into the house. She needlessly explained that she was baking cookies; the overwhelming smell made that clear enough. The dark of the living room typically contrasted with the constant brightness of the kitchen. Without the usual glaring fluorescent lights overhead, he struggled to navigate in the wake of his mother to the kitchen. His mother offered cookies that were cooling on racks and settled into a wooden chair in the back corner of the kitchen, all the while huffing from the exertion of crossing the house twice. 

“Hi, Will,” his dad called from a perch on a ladder before quickly returning to the task of installing a new set of fluorescent tube bulbs. Will’s mother dozed off, her crinkled eyes drifting closed. Will hated to leave his frail father alone in a room balanced on a ladder, but he really wanted to shrug off his bags. He felt his way back out of the kitchen and down the hall to his old room, now the guest room. 

He flicked on the stark light, its hum joining the ticking of the clock. His parents had done a thorough job expunging any record of his years spent in the room. The bed was new; the dresser was new. The rest of the room was bare except a framed image on the wall, an artist’s rendering of Paris that they probably bought pre-framed from Target. He opened the closet and dumped his bag onto the floor. He spotted the one indelible mark he left on the space: a hemispherical dent near the base of the closet wall. A transient moment of teen angst memorialized eternally. 

He nearly walked away without unpacking, but he remembered just in time to hang up his outfit for the gathering that night. His shirt already had some creases, and smacking at them didn’t magically remove them. He figured he might need to iron the shirt later, but for the moment he just hung it up. 

In the glow of the TV, alongside his entranced parents, Will picked at a dinner served on a TV tray. Will couldn’t tell you what they watched; his mind was too busy forecasting that night. Thanks to his friend Tom’s impromptu reunion, Will was going to see her for the first time in over a decade, twelve years to be exact. And sledding was a stroke of genius. Will could picture himself alone with her on a sled, her arms wrapped around his waist to stabilize herself. And her legs on either side of his… 

What time was it? Just late enough for him to reasonably start getting ready. After a quick exchange with his mother, whose eyes never left the screen, he gained enough information to locate the iron and ironing board in the hall closet. He carefully coiled the iron’s frayed wire around his arm, shoved the board under his other arm, and marched back to his room—that is, the guest room. He set up the ironing board and, in the nick of time, noticed a sticky corner and draped his shirt over the other side. The iron clicked on, and Will started to smooth his shirt. Or try to. A few wrinkles refused his best efforts. 

Will wondered what she would wear. He could still recall a few of her outfits from over the years: the red silky dress she wore to prom senior year, when she went with that guy she knew from orchestra, those jeans and the tank top she wore the day she left for college, that tight skirt and somewhat see-through shirt she wore on their first official date when they both ended up in Chicago after school, and the baggy sweatpants and stained sweatshirt she wouldn’t change out of those last few months. 

A burning smell roused him. His hand wielding the iron jerked up to reveal a scorch mark. “Shit!” Will shouted. His dreams of that night immediately started to sour. She would see him looking disheveled. Then the night wouldn't end with that moment when she would lock eyes with him, say she never stopped loving him, and lean in… 

He put on the burned shirt and plodded across the hall into the bathroom. What should he do with his hair? He normally did nothing, but his hair looked so messy. And long. He should’ve gotten a haircut. He put some water on his hair to slick it down. That would have to do. 

Somehow the time had creeped by without his notice, and now he needed to rush. He grabbed his coat, the black leather one not the puffy warm one he would typically use for an outdoor activity like sledding. The roads were bare; the sledding area must have shipped in snow or made their own. Aren’t those things that happen? Across town, out to the boonies, and finally he found an overcrowded parking lot. He slipped his burgundy car into what might or might not be an actual parking spot. His friend Tom bounced out of a silver BMW in the spot next to him.

“Hey, Will!” Tom tromped over. “Glad you could make it.”

“Yeah, me too. Thanks for organizing this get together. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the high-school gang.” Will gave Tom an over-the-shoulder hug with a quick back pat. The pair jogged up to a big group chatting away. People gave the elevator pitch of their lives and boisterously reenacted pivotal moments from high school: the time Kevin fell down the bleachers mid-pep rally, the silly way Sarah used to say “hola” in Spanish class, the night they all drank out on the football field and slept under the stars. 

“Everyone forgets how cold and wet we were after sleeping out on that field.” A whisper tickled Will’s neck and ear. “Eric was sick for a week.” She looked just as Will remembered. Her glittering smile, shining eyes, the rosy tinge of her cheeks. 

“Who wants to remember that?” Will whispered back, turning slightly away from the group and toward her. “Besides, a little sickness was worth the beauty of that night.” He wanted her to remember that night as he did not as the night Eric caught a cold. That night she and Will shared a sleeping bag, sipped beers and looked at the stars, and in the last moments before sleep they kissed for the first time. Will remembered the kiss as soft but transporting. At the time, he thought it would be the beginning of… Something. Everything. Instead, they never talked about it. She greeted him Monday at school the same as always, as before. And he never had the courage to bring up. Not even when they dated after college. He wondered if she really didn’t remember. Was she that drunk? If she was, maybe he did something wrong when he kissed her. Or did she kiss him? The memory is hazy to him too. He too had been drinking. 

“It’s not my favorite high school memory. The orchestra trip to Portland gets my top billing.” She smiled as she coiled a scarf around her neck. Orchestra; Will wondered if that trip had something to do with her prom date. 

The group started migrating to the top of the hill. She chatted with a few others as they climbed. But she and Will kept gravitating to one another. Will couldn’t sustain a conversation with anyone else for very long. He just wanted to watch her move, talk, and laugh. His memories once again embodied in the living being of their origins. His future memories were in tantalizing grasp: Her body wrapped around his as they sledded down the hill. Perhaps they would fall out at the bottom. Fall together into the snow, lying next to one another, and finally a cold kiss with frosty noses pressed into cheeks. 

“I haven’t been sledding since I was… Maybe 10?” She sidled up to him. 

“Me neither.” 

“If I face-plant, do you promise not to laugh?” She grabbed his arm for a moment as she stepped over a log. 

“Of course,” Will placed his gloved hand over hers on his arm. She pulled away to adjust her hat. 

“Are you still in New York?” She asked.

“Yes. Are you still in Chicago?” Will cleared his throat. Time for the perfunctory update. 

“Yes, sort of. Does Winnetka count as Chicago?” 

“I’ll allow it.” Will laughed. He couldn’t picture her in the suburb. She loved going to a concert on a whim. She always said she couldn’t live more than a twenty-minute walk from a museum. “How do you like Winnetka?” 

“It’s cute. I’d love to be back in the city.”

“I’m sure.”

“But with the kids, it’s nice to have a yard. And the safety. All that boring stuff.” Her eyes crinkled with a smile. He hadn’t noticed those wrinkles before. Crow's feet. 

“How many kids do you have?” 

“Three boys. Between them and my husband, I am overwhelmed by testosterone.” Her heavy gait slowed as the group stopped to pair off and climb into sleds. “Want to ride together?” She asked with a chubby-cheeked smile and a forehead-wrinkling eyebrow waggle. 

Will agreed, and the pair loaded into the sled. He had imagined he would be the one driving, if that’s the word for it. But she clambered in before he got the chance. He positioned himself behind her, scrawny legs on either side of her wide hips. He wrapped his arm around her bulky waist. 

The sled started down the hill. At some point, her hat flew off and revealed the sweaty matted hair underneath. As they neared the bottom of the hill, the sled hit a bump, and they both flew off. His arm slammed into a tree, which hurt but didn’t cause any damage beyond a bruise. She face-planted into a fluffy pile of snow, her once golden now ashy hair spread out around her. Will kept his promise and didn’t laugh.